Dr Marta Simo-Comas

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+44 (0) 118 378 8404
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Lecturer in Spanish Culture
Joint Outreach Lead for the Department of Languages and Cultures
Office
Miller G22Building location
Miller buildingAreas of interest
My research interests lie principally in Peninsular twentieth-century fiction, especially from the 1980s to the present. I wrote my PhD, and a subsequent monograph, on the works of the Spanish writer José Luis Sampedro (1917-2013), focusing on characterization through the interchange between story (in its temporal and spatial dimensions) and discourse and situating this within the broader context of the Western novel and the symbolic tradition.
In 2016 I contributed to a documentary, produced by Radio Nacional de España, celebrating Sampedro’s significance as a writer and as a thinker.
More recently I have written on the works of other contemporary authors, such as José María Merino (b. 1941), Cristina Fernández Cubas (b. 1945) and Marta Sanz (b.1967).
My research covers four major areas:
- contemporary Spanish narrative
- the nature of narrative, metafiction, realism, the continuity of literary and conceptual traditions and the survival of universal symbolic motifs and myths in contemporary fiction
- the uncanny in contemporary narrative
- the publishing industry and cultural policies during the Spanish Transition to Democracy.
Postgraduate supervision
I welcome proposals from prospective doctoral students with an interest in any of the areas of my research interests outlined above.
Current supervisions:
- Begoña Garrido Were all Basque women ‘La Pasionaria’? Negotiating gendered spaces in working-class Basque women’s testimonies of Bizkaia, under Franco (1937-1949).
Teaching
I convene and teach SP2MCN (Spanish Modern and Contemporary Narratives). I co-teach on the following modules:
- SP1L3 (Advanced Spanish Language I)
- SP2L4 (Advanced Spanish Language II) SP1L1 (Icons of Spain and Latin America)
- SP1SLAC (Introduction to Spanish and Latin American Culture), which I convene
- ML1GEC (Greats of European Cinema)
- ML2GF (Science, Perversion and Dream in Global Fantastic Literature)
- ML3CW (Cinemas of the World) ML3NCEF (19th Century European Fiction)
Research centres and groups
I am a member of the international network ‘Prácticas culturales y esfera pública: editoras españolas latinoamericanas contemporáneas / Cultural Practice and Public Sphere: Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Female Publishers’, funded by Spain´s Ministry of Education and Culture and led by Dr Pura Fernández, based at the CSIC.
I also contribute to the EDI-RED database of Ibero-American Editors and Publishers.
Academic qualifications
- Lic.Fil. (Universitat de Barcelona)
- PhD (Exeter)
Publications
- Simo-Comas, M. (2022) Interacción creadora entre texto e imagen en el microrrelato fantástico peninsular en las primeras dos décadas del siglo XXI. Brumal. Revista de investigación sobre lo fantástico/Brumal. Research Journal on the Fantastic , 9 (2). pp. 31-56. ISSN: 2014-7910 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.5565/rev/brumal.825
- Simo-Comas, M. (2022) From puberty and democracy to menopause and recession: love and female identity in the works of Marta Sanz. Feminine Plural: Women in Transition in the Luso-Hispanic World. Studies in Contemporary Women’s Writing series Peter Lang
- Simo, M. (2021) Alegorías de lo femenino en la narrativa breve e hiperbreve de Patricia Esteban Erlés. Microtextualidades. Revista Internacional de microrrelato y minificción (10). pp. 18-34. ISSN: 2530-8297 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.31921/microtextualidades.n10a2
- Simo-Comas, M. (2019) Esther Tusquets: la práctica editorial como praxis feminista. Lectora: revista de dones i textualitat , 25 ISSN: 2013-9470 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1344/Lectora2019.25.12
- Simo-Comas, M. (2019) Extrañeza y horror: aspectos de lo ominoso en el universo literario de Cristina Fernández Cubas. Expresiones del Horror en la Ficción Hispana. Expresiones del horror en la ficción hispana ISBN: 9788494562044
- Simo-Comas, M. (2018) Continuidad y ruptura en dos lecturas contemporáneas del hombre lobo: Brañaganda, de David Monteagudo y Licantropia, de Carles Terès. Brumal. Research Journal of the Fantastic , 6 (2). pp. 165-185. ISSN: 2014-7910 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.5565/rev/brumal.536
- Simo-Comas, M. (2018) El motivo de la noche en la narrativa breve de José María Merino: tradición, espacio conceptual y sentido. In: Casas, A. and Encinar, A. , (eds.) El gran fabulador. La obra narrativa de José María Merino. Visor Libros , Madrid (Spain). ISBN: 9788498951981
- Simo-Comas, M. (2018) La realidad y sus representaciones: una aproximación a la poética realista en la obra narrativa de Marta Sanz. Olivar. Revista de Literatura y Cultura Españolas , 18 (27). ISSN: 1852-4478 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.24215/18524478e021
- Simo-Comas, M. (2015) Semblanza de Rosa Regàs Pagès. Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes , Alicante.
- Simo-Comas, M. (2015) Conciencia democrática e industria editorial en los primeros años de la Transición española: la Biblioteca de divulgación política. Amnis , 14 ISSN: 1764-7193 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.4000/amnis.2634
- Simo-Comas, M. (2014) Ética y estética en la novela realista contemporánea: de Miau (1888) a Animales domésticos (2003). Pasavento. Revista de Estudios Hispanicos , II (1). pp. 35-56. ISSN: 2255-4505
- Simó Comas, M. (2011) El extraño caso de José Luis Sampedro y su percepción del mundo: el doble perfil de un visionario. Bulletin of Spanish Studies , 88 (7-8). pp. 311-325. ISSN: 1475-3820 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14753820.2011.620328
- Simó, M. (2007) Del mundo alegórico al mundo ficcional: discurso y sentido en Los invisibles, de José María Merino. Bulletin of Spanish Studies , 84 (3). pp. 349-367. ISSN: 1475-3820 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14753820701321763
- Simó Comas, M. (2007) Imágenes de la dualidad en el universo literario de José Luis Sampedro. Colección Alfar Universidad. Serie Estudios Literarios , 148. Ediciones Alfar , Sevilla. ISBN: 9788478982530
- Simó Comas, M. (2004) Tiempo, espacio y discurso en la configuración del personaje literario: Los círculos del tiempo, de José Luis Sampedro. COLECCIÓN: TESIS DOCTORALES "CUM LAUDE" SERIE LITERATURA (TDL) , 25. Fundación Universitaria Española , Madrid. pp 384. ISBN: 8473925645